Drunken Owls and Other Delights

Midweek Update Needed a Drink Or Three

Wed, 17 Jan 2018 21:17:22 GMT

Oof. Day Jobbery yesterday was irritating to the point that I put myself in Do Not Disturb. Not that it helped matters, as I was still getting pinged by coworkers, but I at least made a significant dent. It was one of those days where EVERYONE needed a hand held or a fire to put out, or requests were made out incorrectly, all on top of managerial requests to Drop Everything And Do THIS Before the Client Ragequits the Bank Over Something That Isn't Even Our Fault.

So yeah, that was fun.

Today's a bit less insane, thankfully. I've only been interrupted once to help put out a fire, and I've received word that that situation has now been signed off as done. I was even able to get reasonably caught up! Go me!

SO -- does this mean no writing last night? Hell, no! I said I was going to be stubborn about it, and I made good on that threat. One full chapter of Lidwells revised, and two and a half handwritten pages of Apartment Complex. [Seriously, I need to come up with a good name for that, even if it's temporary, just so it's easier to refer to. I'll take a look at my mp3 collection... song titles have never steered me wrong before!] I even got the journal and the daily 750 done! Not bad at all.

Speaking of Lidwells, I still don't have a solid date for release yet, but I'm thinking maybe sometime in February. I just need to finish revision (I'm about halfway through), format it, and make a cover for it. It's taking a little longer than expected, but I'm not worried. It'll drop when it drops, and it'll be soon.

OKAY! It's still early in the afternoon and I've still got tons of stuff to do, so let's see if I can keep it up!

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Midweek Update Is Swimming Upstream

Wed, 10 Jan 2018 19:39:44 GMT

It's been quite the busy week here in Spare Oom. Between trying to keep on top of my new writing regimen and the responsibilities of the Day Job, I'm surprised I have time to breathe. BUT! I'm still in control, so that's a good thing. It's definitely a bit of a juggle and I definitely feel like I've been swimming upstream the last few days, but I'm still breathing and I'm not stressed out.

And that's basically because I'm making it a point NOT to be stressed out. The Day Job can get the best of me sometimes, and I'll get irritated when I get broadsided with multiple requests to OMG DROP EVERYTHING AND PUT THIS FIRE OUT FIRST. But I've learned over time to just deal with the situations as they come and not take it personally. I know the irritation isn't the volume but in the interruption. I get a bit OCD with my Day Job work -- I kind of have to, as there are a LOT of moving parts to it -- but it's not my fault if I'm late because of something else taking precedence. It is what it is.

SO. On a more personal note, I'm definitely feeling the irritation of a craptastic rough first draft on my new projects. It's a necessary evil, though. It happens. I just need to power through it.

The juggling of the many regimens, though -- the items on the whiteboard, the blog schedule, and so on -- I'm committed to getting used to it. It's the only way for me to conquer it all. As they say, there is no other option. (I'd rather not use the 'go big or go home' because, well, I work from home and that kind of defeats the purpose of that pithy quote. Heh.) So whenever I'm feeling doubts about it all, I remind myself of the late 90s-early 00s, when I forced myself to get used to the writing regimen down in the Belfry. I made myself go down to the basement and work on the transcription and work at least two solid hours a night. The process was fun at the time, but it was fueled by determination that I had to take that step in order to make it happen.

This isn't any different: now, I'm forcing myself to get used to writing longhand on the Apartment Complex story, get through at least ten or so pages of the final revision for Lidwells, keep the strict blog schedule. Hell, I'm even being strict about the daily words as well as the music and art, mundane as those exercises are. They're things I've long wanted and loved to do but always postponed for one reason or another. I want to DO those things rather than say I wished I'd had time for them.

So yeah. A bit like swimming upstream, but I'm getting there.

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Mixing it up again

Fri, 20 Oct 2017 22:48:35 GMT

I really need to do something about my Twitter feed. It feels like lately it's been seeing the worst of me, and vice versa. This means two things:
I should probably do a rigorous cleaning of my follows, expand my mute list, and be a little more positive on there myself. Which led me to the idea I had earlier this morning: to try to go a month tweeting nothing but positive things. I don't mean just posting pithy inspirational tweets or retweeting cat pictures -- although there's nowt wrong with the latter, of course! But I'd like to be more actively positive, this way I'll get myself out of that reactionary rut I've found myself in.

I don't want to ragequit social media, for multiple reasons: I'd be losing touch with my friends, and I'd be losing a viable avenue for publicity of my books. Plus, it would feel like the jocks and the popular kids won and I'll be the nerd crawling back in his hole and feeling sorry for myself. I did that route as a teenager, I'm too old for that shit now.

ANYWAY. I'm curious to see if I can pull off this positivity thing. We shall see!

In other news, I've also been thinking about bulking up my whiteboard schedule again. It's fine now, but I think I need to push my boundaries once more. Assign myself little exercises to expand my knowledge and expertise. Drawing in a different style. Recording the little riffs I've come up with and writing songs around them. Get out of the 'safe' guitar chords and learn new, more complex ones. Post here more often! I know this is something I usually think about at the end of the year as my form of New Year's resolutions, but why not start now?

I'm curious to see where this will lead. Last time this happened, I came up with a few new novel ideas, one of which I'm close to finishing! :)

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